A large detached house in an estate of modern homes off a country road a few minutes’ drive from the M50 in Shankill, Co Dublin, has a whimsical touch – a copper-roofed tower at its centre. The turret contains a circular sittingroom on the third floor with terracotta-painted walls and six windows looking out to the Sugar Loaf and the old Ballycorus leadmines.
Number 7 Ballybride Manor, a detached 464sq m (5,000sq ft) five/six-bedroom house in walk-in condition is now for sale by private treaty for €1.95 million through Sherry FitzGerald.
Ballybride Manor is an estate of very large modern homes a fairly short drive from Shankill village up Crinken Lane. The owners of number 7 bought the site for their house in 1999 and architect Maria Kiernan of Kearney & Kiernan designed it for them. The three-storey house comes with a separate 79.8sq m (860sq ft) home office/guest house beside it.
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A relatively modest front door opens into a very large, very bright double-height entrance hall, dominated by a handsome handmade circular oak staircase which leads to a galleried landing on the first floor. French doors in a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows in the hall open onto a garden that wraps around the house.
Nearly all the downstairs rooms open on to the gardens. The emphasis everywhere is on height (nearly 10ft high ceilings) and space, with little expense spared on natural details – solid oak floors (with underfloor heating) everywhere, a blue-and-white fully mosaic- tiled en suite in the main bedroom, granite countertops in the kitchen with a splashback that covers most of the kitchen walls. Much of the furniture was bought to complement the decor in the house and may be included in the sale.
Downstairs, the accommodation includes a drawingroom, diningroom, kitchen/ breakfastroom, and familyroom-cum- garden room.
The diningroom has been given a period flavour with deep red walls and decorative oak panelling on the lower half of the walls. There’s a honey-coloured Cotswold stone fireplace in the drawingroom and the brightest space is the familyroom, which opens through glazed double doors into the garden room. This has a vaulted ceiling and windows on three sides looking into the garden.
The rectangular kitchen is designed so that everything comes easily to hand: it has lots of solid oak units, the granite countertop and extensive granite splashback. There’s a high tongue-and-groove ceiling over the breakfastroom and a good-sized utility room off the kitchen. The circular staircase leads to the first floor landing, where curved balustrades overlook the entrance hall on two sides. There are three bedrooms, all en suite, and a study (that could be another bedroom). The main bedroom (and a second bedroom) have walk-in dressingrooms; the en suite with the main bedroom is spacious, with steps leading up to the bath and a walk-in shower. The study is lined with bookshelves and has a built-in desk.
There are two more bedrooms – both en suite – on the second floor, as well as the tower sittingroom. The house in the garden is bigger than many apartments: it has an open-plan livingroom/ kitchen and an en suite bedroom downstairs and a mezzanine sittingroom up a flight of stairs.
There is a wide deck all around the house and gardens landscaped by Bernard Seymour: there’s a pretty pond, mature trees, lawns and patio areas. There’s plenty of room for parking in the gravelled area at the front of the house.
